Published 7:17 pm, Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Local police deploy technology that can record citizens wherever we drive.

THE STAKES:

Society is challenged again to weigh the benefits and the concerns.

The days when a police officer stops you and asks where you're coming from and where you're going may soon seem quaint. Increasingly, they already have the answer.

Welcome to the world of mass societal surveillance. Goodbye, another measure of privacy.

The technology we're talking about — license plate readers that are popping up throughout the state — can help law enforcement do its job in ways once barely imaginable except to science fiction writers. This isn't about just spotting unregistered motor vehicles or catching parking scofflaws. It could, at least in theory, help solve serious crimes.

But, just as the National Security Agency's mass collection of phone and Internet data raised concerns even as the NSA touted its value in protecting the nation, so does the proliferation of these scanners and the amassing of millions of records on the movement of ordinary citizens, most of whom are not suspected of any wrongdoing.

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And just as Congress has been grappling with the nature and limits of the NSA's activities, we need, here in New York and in this region, a thorough look at and understanding of this data collection by police.

As the Times Union's Jordan Carleo-Evangelist reported, the license plate readers, mounted on police cars or scattered around the landscape, are being used throughout the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan area. The information they gather is stored in a server in the Albany County office building — 37 million entries and counting. State grants are funding local purchases.

The technology has plenty of everyday usefulness — spotting stolen cars, nabbing parking scofflaws or catching residential parking permit system violators in Albany. But authorities say such data could help solve serious crimes, too. It would, for example, allow investigators to compile a list of cars that were near a crime scene, challenge a suspect's alibi or detect unusual traffic in an area.

But with this technology comes questions. For starters: How long will data be kept, and how will it be used?

There are no state guidelines on how long data is retained. Civil libertarians would like to see it purged if it's of no immediate value. Maine requires deletion after 21 days if it's not part of an active investigation. On the law enforcement end, some suggest using statutes of limitations as a guideline. But since some crimes, like murder, have no statute of limitations, that's essentially saying the data should remain forever.

As for its use, officials say that right now it can be accessed only for a specific investigation. But should there be clear restrictions on mining the data in more exotic ways, such as with computer programs designed to detect what authorities consider to be suspect behavior?

The questions this technology raises are not all that different from those Congress has been asking about the NSA. The difference is that the consequences and implications strike much closer to home, for better and for worse.